In Honor of #Folklore Thursday: Reading “Briar Rose”

from Philip Pullman’s re-telling of Fairy Tales From the Brothers Grimm:

The sleep was so deep that it spread through all the castle. The king and queen had just returned, and as soon as they walked into the hall they fell down where they stood. Their servants and attendants fell down too, like dominoes in a line, and so did the horses in the stable and the grooms looking after them, and the pigeons on the roof and the dogs in the courtyard. One dog was scratching himself: he fell asleep just like that, with his back paw behind his ear. The flies on the wall fell asleep. Down in the kitchen the very flames under the roasting ox fell asleep. A drop of fat that was about to fall from the sizzling carcass stayed where it was and didn’t move.